From the Richmond Dispatch, 5/31/1862, p. 2, c. 2

A German residing on Broad street, above
Brook avenue, was put in Castle Godwin on Thursday last, for
attempting to hang his negro woman. He succeeded in suspending her
to the limb of a tree in his yard, but the neighbors cut her down
before life was quite extinct. The doctor summoned to see her was of
opinion, yesterday, that the woman would die. The unlawful act was
performed in a fit of rage, and it is said for “no sufficient
cause.”